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I've Come Full Circle!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Not many people would guess this, but my love of roleplaying actually started because of a computer game. In 1980, I discovered one of the first computer roleplaying games, Akalabeth: World of Doom. It had very simple graphics, and gameplay amounted largely to wandering through computer-generated dungeons, killing things, and taking their loot. But I was hooked! I used to go down to my local computer store—Computer World, in Appleton, Wisconsin—and I'd play the game on their Apple II demo setup for hours. (The Computer World staff tolerated my incessant play because it attracted lots of attention to the computer!)

In 1981, I went off to St. Olaf College, leaving Computer World—and Akalabeth—behind. I soon needed to scratch my adventuring itch, so put I up a message on the bulletin boards asking if anybody at St. Olaf was playing Akalabeth. That didn't pan out, but it did lead someone to contact me about a game that was new to me: Dungeons & Dragons. Of course, I fell in love with D&D, eventually leading me to a career of more than 25 years in the gaming business, including working at Wizards of the Coast on the launch of D&D's third edition in 2000!

My boss on that 3E team was Ryan Dancey, and when I left Wizards, I told Ryan that I'd love to work with him again someday. But our lives diverged; I started Paizo, and Ryan went to CCP in Iceland to be the Chief Marketing Officer for the EVE Online MMO. We stayed in touch over the years, and after Ryan left CCP earlier this year, I asked him what he was going to do next. His answer: "How about a Pathfinder MMO?"

At first I was skeptical. I'd heard horror stories about hundreds of millions of dollars lost developing games that were never released. Or games that launched with a big splash only to become zombies within months, their subscriber base dwindled down to a barely sustainable number. But this was Ryan, and I really wanted to work with him again. So I challenged him to convince me—to make me a believer. Over the next few months, Ryan started developing a plan for this Pathfinder MMO, and I started to believe. The plan wasn't 100%, though, so I brought the resources of Paizo to bear on it. Erik Mona, Vic Wertz, James Jacobs, Jeff Alvarez, Gary Teter, Wes Schneider, Sarah Robinson, and more each contributed unique insight to help us come up with a plan for the game—now christened Pathfinder Online—that we could all believe in. What we are announcing today is the result of that work.

Pathfinder Online's journey is just beginning. We've started a brand-new company called Goblinworks to create the game. At the moment, it's owned by myself, Ryan, Paizo, and Mark Kalmes. Mark is one of the top tech guys in the MMO field, and he'll be Goblinworks' Chief Technical Officer. (And we're currently looking for additional investors to help us move forward with Pathfinder Online.)

Traditionally, projects like this are developed in secrecy, with information leaking out in whispers for months before a formal announcement. But we don't want our loyal customers to find out about Pathfinder Online through rumored half-truths; we want you in on the ground floor.

A lot of big picture work has already been done on Pathfinder Online, and it's going to be a bit different from your traditional fantasy MMO. It's going to focus around the characters you create, in a world that will grow out of your interactions, developing the way you choose to develop it. It takes place in the River Kingdoms of Golarion, with our own Kingmaker Adventure Path providing some of the inspiration. There will be an overarching storyline, and dungeons aplenty to explore, but where Pathfinder Online is going to thrive is in the ability of each of you to leave your mark on the world. Do you want to build a castle that you own and control? Go for it. Want to start a town and rally folks to your banner? Do that. Do you want to ally with the neighboring villages to form a new nation—or perhaps wage war on them instead? The choice is yours. Want to become the most feared bandit in the River Kingdoms? The path is available. Want to become the greatest armorer that Golarion has ever seen? All it takes is hard work. If you can imagine doing something in the world of Golarion, we want you to be able to do that in Pathfinder Online.

The fun is just starting! Please use the discussion thread here on paizo.com to interact with Ryan, Mark, myself, and the rest of the Goblinworks crew as we start this new adventure. We're going to be very interactive with you, the Pathfinder community, because we want this game to be YOURS. Stay tuned for blogs, trailers, and other teasers as we move forward. In true Paizo fashion, we will keep you guys in the loop, and listen to your feedback as we progress.

Things have come a long way since Akalabeth. Join me for the ride and help make Pathfinder Online the best MMORPG ever!

One thing that I really liked in DDO over WoW was that it was very easy to play Solo (so for those of you that hate MMO's, this aspect will appeal to you from a single player perspective). I solo'd a lot due to my timezone and finding decent people to play with and I still managed to have a 16th level character and a bunch of 4th-8th level characters for minimal time investiture (5-10 hours a week). I could never have done that with WoW...

Sure you could have. Soloing all the way to 85 in WoW is easy mode.

I played for 3 hours and got my Character to level 2 (almost 3). And I was only playing 5-10 hours a week in my hey day (I could manage nowhere near that now). So you're saying that the later levels are as easy to do as the earlier ones? I'd get to level 85 in no time at all soloing the easy quests on that little time?

I've played a ton of MMOs, some more than others. From WoW to DDO, LotRO, Runescape, Allods, Perfect World, Runes of Magic, EVE and more... time-served, that's me.

The F2P model is the way to go (or at least the hybrid P2P/F2P model is the way to go) as it gives a lot more people an opportunity to play without investing a great deal. This being Pathfinder, that should be enough to hook 'em!

However, from my own experience, there is ALWAYS some element of a particular MMO that drives parts of their audience up the wall. Whether it's PVP, or lack of PVP, RP or no RP, micro-transactions in your face or jarring content - something will get parts of the audience up in arms.

I'm also a developer (though not of MMOs) so please believe me when I say that this is almost certainly YEARS away. Not many, but certainly two or three. These things take time and, because Paizo has a proven track record in this arena, I'm sure we'll all have our say.

I would rather see this time, money, and effort put into expanding the Pathfinder RPG. For example, it could go to hiring more staff so that release schedules could go from "will be released sometime in December" to "will be released on December 18."

That's not about money or staffing. Setting precise release dates before we have product in our warehouse is unwise. Shipments get delayed in transit or held in customs, delivery trucks show up an hour after everyone has gone home, and multi-pallet shipments unexpectedly get broken into multiple deliveries on different days. And if even one product is a couple days late, that delays the entire monthly release plan. We could tell you right now what date we expect to start shipping the December releases... but there's a big enough chance that we'd be wrong, so we just say Late December.

dkeester wrote:

Or it could go towards the development of more Flip-Mats and Map Packs. These resources could also go towards developing mapping tools, or supporting Hero Lab so that they finally get the Mac version out. Some of these resources could possibly go to WizKids to finally get the Pathfinder Battles minis out the door. They have been delayed too many times.

We could double (or heck, quadruple) the number of Flip-Mats and Map Packs on the schedule right now if we wanted to. But we think we've got them on an appropriate pace for most of our customers, and we're not going to overdo it.

As for Pathfinder Battles minis, Heroes & Monsters was delayed just once, from December to early January. Given that it's the first time we're doing a set like that with WizKids, I don't think that's anything unreasonable.

But that's all really beside the point. Goblinworks is a separate company. Paizo's expenses on it are minimal, and will cease when Goblinworks finishes raising investment capital. In all, I don't expect that we'll spend enough cash on Goblinworks to even cover the publishing budget for, say, the Rise of the Runelords compilation.

dkeester wrote:

Finally, I have a question. Why did you guys take the whole Paizo.Com site offline yesterday to make this announcement? I realize it was a PR stunt, but in my opinion it was a amateurish one.

It wasn't a PR stunt. We had to make some changes to our database that required it to go fully offline for a bit.

I remember talking to Erik Mona about this when I opened Sunder Studios over two years ago. Awesome to see it come to fruition. I have a ton to say about it but I think a video on R&R is better than some text on a screen.

We could double (or heck, quadruple) the number of Flip-Mats and Map Packs on the schedule right now if we wanted to. But we think we've got them on an appropriate pace for most of our customers, and we're not going to overdo it.

Damn those customers with their families to feed. :(

Is there a chance the mooted 'player companion to become monthly' is going to happen any time soon? Or was that more rumor than anything else?

Holy smokes, that's slow. After 3 hours you should be at level 5, easy. Probably closer to 7 or 8.

I mean, you can, like, auto-attack kobolds for three hours and be higher than level 2.

Quote:

And I was only playing 5-10 hours a week in my hey day (I could manage nowhere near that now). So you're saying that the later levels are as easy to do as the earlier ones? I'd get to level 85 in no time at all soloing the easy quests on that little time?

No, the later levels take dramatically longer than the earlier ones.

But WoW is built to be soloable all the way to the top. Dungeons and group quests are non-essential. You might have to ignore a handful of group quests along the way, but your progress will not be impeded. There will be plenty of solo quests for you to complete, all the way to 85. That's how most people do it, their first time through.

Holy smokes, that's slow. After 3 hours you should be at level 5, easy. Probably closer to 7 or 8.

I mean, you can, like, auto-attack kobolds for three hours and be higher than level 2.

Quote:

And I was only playing 5-10 hours a week in my hey day (I could manage nowhere near that now). So you're saying that the later levels are as easy to do as the earlier ones? I'd get to level 85 in no time at all soloing the easy quests on that little time?

No, the later levels take dramatically longer than the earlier ones.

But WoW is built to be soloable all the way to the top. Dungeons and group quests are non-essential. You might have to ignore a handful of group quests along the way, but your progress will not be impeded. There will be plenty of solo quests for you to complete, all the way to 85. That's how most people do it, their first time through.

This is true. And it seems it has become even more soloable as time has passed. I bought the Cataclysm expansion when it came out. I hadn't played in so long that I started a new character just so I could learn the basics again. I leveled 1 character to 85 and 3 others to around 30. This took 3-4 months. I'm sure some people would consider this slow. I am not an optimal player. I would waste time doing things that were not the most efficient use of my time, doing gray quests, auction house stuff, etc. Also note that my play was pretty erratic. I might play 2 hours a night 4 or 5 days in a row, then not play for a week. Or I might play 4-5 hours on Saturday and Sunday, then not play for a week, etc. There may have been a group or 2 in there, but pretty much all solo.

So it is definitely even easier to level in WoW than it has ever been before. Though the early levels have always been pretty easy.

Goblinworks is a separate company. Paizo's expenses on it are minimal, and will cease when Goblinworks finishes raising investment capital. In all, I don't expect that we'll spend enough cash on Goblinworks to even cover the publishing budget for, say, the Rise of the Runelords compilation.

This is key for me.

I'm sure you will find a ton of goodwill towards Goblinworks from your fan base here as long as there's no chance that we lose PFRPG/Golarion. Even the best MMO in the world wouldn't be worth that.

Yeah, too many new MMOs have been blown to smithereens, often even before being published and so the risk of failure is great.

However I think there is a window of opportunity that slowly opens and allows truely new MMOs to succeed because of the crowed being finally bored by the sheer mass of same old same old MMOs that we have seen since longer than I can think of.

First off, I think this is a great idea and look forward to it. But as anything computer game related is concerned lets hope the company doing the programming both "gets pathfinder" and has a clue how to write the game. For example the first gold box Pool of Radiance is Awesome... the second Pool of Radiance works better as a coaster.

And on a side comment is anyone else's antivirus software going nuts of the link to Goblinworks? My browser does not want to follow that link at all.

As for all the doomsayers, all I have to say is, "Give us a chance." Nothing is changing at Paizo. We will be making all the same cool products you have come to love. If MMOs aren't your thing, then that is great. Enjoy your regular Pathfinder game. We aren't and can't make an MMO that works for everyone. We know that. We are happy with that.

I am satisfied enough that you are listening. Though I may disagree with the direction, I do find your track record to be stellar, and the spirit of Paizo is strong. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Paizo. (*holds his breath*)

WoW has homogenized the classes so much that it's hard to distinguish between a paladin and a rogue. The spells may have different names and a different graphical effect, but mechanically they have the same effect.

I realize this is off-topic sort of, but you said a lot of things that make NO sense... To keep it simple and not to stray horribly off topic, I'll just ask one question out of the many I have about your extremely long post on the "homogenization" of WOW...

Please tell me how to HEAL with a rogue in World of Warcraft? Paladins are able to do this, and by what you say above that means rogues can too. So, how is it done?

Recuperate. Rogues can self heal better than any other dps class since they nerfed death knights. But I should clarify. Sure, a holy paladin plays different than a rogue, but a ret is almost identical now. Classes that fulfill the same role - I.E, dps in the above example, play pretty much identical. Spam a combo point/holy power builder, hit your finisher, wackamole your reactive's when they proc.

Interesting. Personally I'm more intrigued by Golarion as a gameplay setting in a game than I am of the ruleset in an MMORPG format (though I guess the latter could actually work out well with tweaking). Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

As I have said numerous times in the past, when it comes to the video and computer game markets, it all comes down to who comes to us with an idea. Ryan came asking about doing an MMO. If he would have came asking about a single player game, we probably would be announcing that instead today. Doing an MMO doesn't rule out doing a single player game also. It is just that nobody has come knocking on our door asking to do one.

-Lisa

If someone were to knock on your door with an idea for a single player idea, please convince them to make it turn based. ;)

But that's all really beside the point. Goblinworks is a separate company. Paizo's expenses on it are minimal, and will cease when Goblinworks finishes raising investment capital. In all, I don't expect that we'll spend enough cash on Goblinworks to even cover the publishing budget for, say, the Rise of the Runelords compilation.

This is good to see. I have a lot of trust and good will towards Paizo. Ryan Dancey, having burned me in the past, however will have to earn my trust back with delivery of his product, and from what I've heard of it so far, I haven't yet seen anything that would make me plunk down for it, but I will do my best to keep an open mind.

I never played WoW, don't have the time. I have played FPS only rarely, Neverwinter nights Solo and Multiplayer occasionally. But I do play DDO when I want an easy online experience based upon the D20 ruleset.

My main draw to a MMO Pathfinder game would be the potential integration with other compatible products that can be used around a tabletop and vice versa.

I often tried to replicate the characters from the D&D digital games onto paper form which invariably led to slight differences. I'd consider it an excellent feature of the online game to import and export characters into a format that could be read by character generators with total compatability of the PFRpg ruleset. I'm specifically referring to Hero Lab but others are available.

Now I'm wary of the whole MMO scene anyway because of the time needed to play, real life often gets in the way but I'm really excited about this announcement, if it was tailored to the multiple styles of players. I prefer solo missions that can be played over a period of time in chunks, but others spend days continuously with the intention of levelling quickly.

I was going to ask; 'Why not call it Kingmaker Online?' but having thought about it a little more, I think that this MMOG is somehow tied to the basic story behind Organized Play. At a guess, the players are Pathfinders sent to the region in order to stake a claim for their faction?

That way --if the game is successful, further regions and different goals could be introduced via expansions. That said, I don't see this game having any bearing on the existing PFS Organized Play.

Well, I won't lie. I would have rather seen a single-player campaign set in the Pathfinder universe. As much as I like CRPGs, the MMO dynamic has never appealed to me when I could just schedule a tabletop session instead. I realize that MMOs are the wave of the future in a lot of ways, though, so if it means that Pathfinder Online has to happen before we get the Golarion equivalent of a NWN, Baldur's Gate, or Dragon Age, then so be it.

So, the default MMO acronym for Pathfinder Online is PFO? Am I the only one who thinks this is funny? Back when I was in college, PFOs are what my roommates and myself would call the little bits of correspondence one would receive from a company when the bid for a summer internship or full-time job was rejected, politely.

Personally, I see the MMO Pathfinder pretty much as a wholly separate entity from the PnP Pathfinder that are linked merely by IP. Some people will be drawn in by the MMO, some won't - and some will hate the idea. That's fine, and healthy. No one would want all their hardcore PnPers to ditch the PnP model for the MMO, or vice versa. My assumption is that there would be more cross-pollination than desertion. More importantly, it appears that the fate of Pathfinder is not tied to the fate of the Pathfinder MMO. Because it appears that Goblinworks will be for the most part separate from the PnP side of things financially, my greatest concerns are alleviated. In some cases, even a flop MMO (say, WAR) can generate interest in the PnP version -- at least I've seen it happen. I say, good luck! Someone needs to do a fantasy sandbox MMO right, might as well be Paizo/Goblinworks.

As a casual gamer, I do have one shameless request: please remain true to the partial free model. Some of us don't have the time to justify a MMO subscription, but are more than happy to throw a few dollars the company's way via microtransactions or whatever (like LOTRO) on occasion. I assume I'm not the only MMO dabbler out there.

This is a terrible idea. On the same level as the idea to make 4th edition the way it is(basically an MMO in disguise). Just my opinion, sorry to poop on the parade of any who dig this. I've been really happy with Paizo's efforts on the Pathfinder RPG. I liked the direction, the style, the nods to the past, etc., but this is just .. I dont' even know what to say. I'm disappointed. I guess it's not a deal breaker but it's going to leave it's mark. Feels dirty, I don't like it one bit. But I can't stand the MMO scene anyways. And I dont' see how this promotes the table top game. I'm from small town central USA and it can be really hard to put together a game group at times. Hard to find the people. So what do many of them do, head over to the MMOs and disappear from the grid. Like we need more of that. And the world doesn't need any more MMOs. I wasn't into 4th, and I'm not into this. Good luck paizo, I'm sure we'll bump into each other again one day when you regain your focus and get back to the game.

This is a terrible idea. On the same level as the idea to make 4th edition the way it is(basically an MMO in disguise). Just my opinion, sorry to poop on the parade of any who dig this. I've been really happy with Paizo's efforts on the Pathfinder RPG. I liked the direction, the style, the nods to the past, etc., but this is just .. I dont' even know what to say. I'm disappointed. I guess it's not a deal breaker but it's going to leave it's mark. Feels dirty, I don't like it one bit. But I can't stand the MMO scene anyways. And I dont' see how this promotes the table top game. I'm from small town central USA and it can be really hard to put together a game group at times. Hard to find the people. So what do many of them do, head over to the MMOs and disappear from the grid. Like we need more of that. And the world doesn't need any more MMOs. I wasn't into 4th, and I'm not into this. Good luck paizo, I'm sure we'll bump into each other again one day when you regain your focus and get back to the game.

This is, unfortunately, what happens when you decide to make the most fickle portion of the tabletop gaming market part of your target audience.

a MMO has one positive aspect, even if one is not interested in playing the game.

-the riverlands will get some more background info.
-a GM can use the screenshots as terrain pics in his home p&p campaign.

One more thing: IMO a modified d20 is perfectly suited to the computer game genre. DDO and baldurs gate proofs this.

It is concering for the future of the MMO that Goblinworks try to sell us the prejudicial and vanilla argument: "computer game rules should be different than P&P rules". This claim is only a shallow view which has under closer look no truth. Its the other way around. P&P rules like D20 are better than every MMO and CG ruleset out there because they are designed and play tested for decades by experts.

Thus IMO Goblinworks computer programmers should do their progamming and their 3D modelling but not fuddling around with other more important elements like game rules. Rule design experts from Paizo or other hired design celebrities of the P&P scene should do the ruleset of the PFMMO.

BTW: I am in the camp of cartooney grafics. Why? Because I think the great look of PF grafics contributes considerably to the commercial success of the game. Additionally the brand recognition value for the customer is higher if both lines (the MMO and the P&P) have the same type of grafics.